


Bolero

by vtn



Category: Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, The Network (Band)
Genre: Androgyny, Crossover, Dubious Consent, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-04
Updated: 2006-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 12:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wicked warehouse, a simple series of notes played on a keyboard can become a gateway to other worlds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bolero

It was a strangely familiar combination of notes, a simple enough melody, but a very nice little song, Fink decided. He’d been fiddling around on one of Captain Underpants’s synthesizers and, after a fairly fruitless half hour, found a tune he liked, and sat there playing it with his right hand while his left hand worked at chording. He wondered momentarily if he hadn’t heard it somewhere before, but dismissed the notion since he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how the chords ought to go. 

But, oh, there it was. A minor chord harmony, while the melody danced above it. He tugged at his collar—the room was getting warm, even though it had been a cold December day. But with that Oakland weather, you never knew. Deciding to go turn the air conditioning up, he pushed himself up off the bench and took a step toward the door.

It was as far as he got.

The world gave a wrenching twist in front of Fink’s eyes, and he quickly lost his bearing, slipping and falling, unable to scream, onto a floor that felt remarkably unlike that of the room he was in. Had been in. It was even hotter still, and Fink was dimly aware of a sharp pain near his right cheek, as well as a duller pain in his right hip, which he’d fallen on, he supposed. But mostly he was only aware of a staggering, crushing heat. 

Well, fuck that. He was Fink. He’d been in stranger situations, really, and he’d been in more pain. In fact, he’d been in a great deal more pain the previous night thanks to a particularly violent escapade with Van Gough and the Snoo. He smirked a little, recalling certain details of the night in particular, and then, still smirking, pushed up off of the hard ground to get his bearings.

He was standing in a cavern of sorts, which was growing steadily hotter with each passing second. Vaguely batlike creatures swooped overhead, and, below him—well, that explained the heat. A pit of molten lava stewed and spat, a hundred feet or so below a rickety bridge near the spot where he stood. A light shone through the hazy air somewhere across the bridge—an exit? Fink tested the bridge with one foot and, finding it stable, walked across. 

It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Fink tugged at his mask, innate arrogance forbidding him from removing it despite common sense’s protests. The air was almost syrupy, and it stuck in his throat, dripped into his lungs like melting lead. His vision started to go dark and fuzzy, and his movement became slower and slower until taking one step was agony. He raised his eyes to the ceiling, and then—

 

Fink opened his eyes to find himself in an alien place once again. It was some sort of tent, and a fire burned in the center. A…rather strange fire, he noted; it was blue and didn’t seem to be giving off any heat from what he could tell. There were clay jars stacked around the edges of the tent, and what appeared to be a handheld harp glistened in one corner. Fink himself was laying on burlap, a crimson blanket over him and…shit. He felt for his mask and found his suspicions were confirmed, it was missing. He swore, a long stream of the nastiest words he could think of, and as he did the tent flap pushed open and a boy entered.

He seemed to be wrapped in bandages, and the first thing Fink thought of was Van Gough.

The second thing Fink thought of ...well, it couldn’t exactly be put into words.

The boy had a cleanly cut muscular chest, and the tight clothing he wore clung to his figure in a way that would have, in any other situation, caused Fink to ask him if he were gay. But when in Rome, do as the Romans. Which wasn’t to say he was necessarily in Rome. But he had a feeling that this was not the place and time for such a question, and by place and time, he meant dimension and… century, most likely.

Ending up in other dimensions was not something unknown to Wilhelm Fink.

He picked a different question.

“What happened to me?” The boy sighed. It was the sigh of someone who had much more important things to deal with. He inclined his head and studied Fink for a moment, making Fink’s blood boil with impatience. “Do you speak?”

“Yes,” said the boy, voice a bit clipped, awkward, as if the voice were some kind of affectation. “As for what happened to you—you were inside Death Mountain without any kind of protection. Did you cast a spell that ran out?”

Spell. This world had magic. Perhaps he would understand the truth.

“No. Whatever that place was, I didn’t go there on purpose.”

“You…?”

“I came from another dimension, understand?” The words showed more of his irritation than he’d wanted to be seen, and the boy reacted by tensing his shoulders a bit. 

“I understand. I’m curious as to how, though. No one being that I have been aware of up to now is capable of interdimensional travel. It usually causes rifts, as well. Your travel was…seamless.” His speech flowed much more now.

“I played a song. It brought me there.”

“Ah, a warp song. They don’t work in all places; I’m surprised one did in the place you’re from.”

“Well we have a warp generator where I was. Just usually I can control when warps happen.”

“That’s a dangerous magic you’re getting into. I would avoid it from now on.” The boy nodded his head. “Anyhow, there is no way of knowing whether your dimension has ways for healing the kind of burns you received, so…” 

Fink sat up straight, mentally kicking himself when darkness clouded his eyes momentarily. “Burns? What happened?”

“The heat inside Death Mountain cannot be withstood by most of the races existing in Hyrule, and evidently, not by your race either. While the air alone would not have burnt you, you collapsed, and the hot rock was against your skin long enough to burn. I bandaged your arm and leg, and the herbs underneath should help the pain. But they won’t fully heal for…seven or ten days.” He frowned.  Fink would have returned the frown, but he was formulating plans. For now he had seven or ten days with a beautiful boy. Beautiful, and seemingly oblivious to the way Fink would rake his gaze down his body. Innocence. Soon he was sure he’d be running more than his eyes along that frame, and for that, he would be patient.

~

Without the rush and the pull of the modern world, ‘seven or ten days’ was a fluid entity of time, days and nights tangling together and dawns kissing dusks. Fink hardly left the tent, and when he did, the boy showed him the right herbs to help heal his burns. He would watch the boy as he did target practice in the early hours of the morning, bow strung with fiery arrows whose streaks blended with the red morning clouds.

The boy’s name was Sheik, he told Fink after a few days, and he was among the last of the Sheikah tribe that inhabited the desert. Fink got the feeling that Sheik had powers beyond the realm of human imagination, but in this world, perhaps they were not so strange.  The flashes of Sheik’s eyes enticed him. He hungered. 

~

“Fink.”

The night had surreptitiously dropped its curtain around them, and the two of them sat cross-legged in the tent, fire lit between them. Sheik had many times instructed Fink not to go out in the night; there were _things_ outside, he said. Fink believed. Even now he could hear moans and rattles around the tent. But inside the ring of the lantern’s light, they were safe, he told himself. 

“Yes, Sheik?”

“I believe that tomorrow morning, you may return to your homeland. I will show you the way.” Sheik nodded, affirming his own statement and gesturing toward the glint of firelight on the golden harp. 

“Let us sleep, then.” Before Sheik could say a word, Fink blew out the lantern. The smell of smoke filled the tent, and Fink’s teeth sunk into his lower lip as it curled into his nostrils. Sheik laughed sharply.

“If you demand it, well then I have no _choice_ , do I?” 

Fink heard Sheik’s breath catch in his throat. You’d be surprised, too, if an arm had suddenly hooked around your neck and a pair of lips were pressed against your ear.

“No, Sheik, you don’t have a choice. Everyone gives in, eventually.”

“Stop!” There was a note of panic in Sheik’s voice. “I could kill you if I wanted, you know.” Fink traced his hand down Sheik’s chest. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to do this. And it was true—everyone did give in. 

“I don’t intend to hurt you. Simply—it is the last time I will ever see you, and I would like to thank you for what you’ve done.”

“I don’t consider this a show of gratitude.”

“Not yet.”

“And you’re suggesting I will?”

“Oh, you will. Relax. Close your eyes.”

~

Hands grasped wrists, cold palms met bare skin, and bandages soon lay in a heap on the floor.   Fink did not wonder for a moment at the shapes he felt against him. What he cared about was the stinging kisses he administered to Sheik’s shoulders, face, and arms. Waist. Hips. Then…

~

Dawn. Night stretching out to blow one last kiss to the light, being chased away with a wave of the hand and a coquettish giggle. Sunlight peeking into the tent, finding two bodies so hopelessly intertwined that it seemed there was no end to one and beginning of the other. Laughing and racing away at the sight. The things one saw out in the Hyrulian deserts…

~

_One song and several moons later_

 

“Link, there is something I must tell you,” Zelda says, taking the hand of her lover. She is all sweetness and smiles.

“Yes, princess?” She giggles at the title but more at his soft eyes, and blushes, looking down at her feet.

“We are blessed,” she explains, taking his hand in hers and placing it over her stomach. Hoping he can feel a tiny heartbeat. “Our love has been smiled down upon by the Three Goddesses.”

“I knew,” he says, eyes lighting up. “And this child will be very lucky to have a mother like you. I cannot wait for the day!”

~

The child is born on a cold winter day, as fires roar. His hair is a mess of black curls; his eyes are green. As Link holds him for the first time, his squalls calm down. The fire reflects back in his eyes, strangely familiar. 


End file.
